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July 2006 — January 2007 Feb 2007 — March 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 – July 2007 Old odds and ends Admin stuff, RfA through June 2007 July 2007 July – August 2007 August 2007 September 2007 September 2007 – present (Date ranges are approximate)

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RFPP for La Salle Institute

I feel your pain! Who are you, Bill Clinton? Oh, all right, I'll live with it. :-) Bearian 23:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh snap... I've been outed! MastCell 23:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're bored...

Need some help with User talk:Jinxmchue and his tendentious edits to D. James Kennedy. I'm leaving you these messages in my desire not to blow out another coronary artery in fighting POV-warriors. I'm still not recovered from the HIV-pseudoscience articles you pointed me too. Sheesh. OrangeMarlin 21:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, I remember the profane, abusive email User:Jinxmchue sent me when I blocked him for 3RR a few months back, in which he stated that he was picking up his toys and going to Conservapedia. I might have blocked him for a longer period without email, but I took him at his word that he was leaving so I figured it was moot. I suppose this means he's returned and is still up to his old behavior. Probably best to ask another admin to handle it; I added him to my email killfile after his last vitriolic missive, so if I blocked him he wouldn't be able to appeal to my better judgement. MastCell 21:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It's going to be your fault if I blow out another artery. It's on your head. Your guilty conscience.  :) Every editor I know is intimately involved with the article. I forgot you had to block his butt once before. Well we might have to move to an AN/I. I hate digging up diffs all the time. I need three screens going!!!! OrangeMarlin 21:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I know you're trying to be a good fair admin, but did you see this? OrangeMarlin 21:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

AN/I is the better option in this case anyway. I'm conceivably no longer entirely objective. About Wikiquette alerts, the fact is that 9 times out of 10 the complainant has actually engaged in equivalent or worse incivility, then caught their target saying something ill-tempered and run to WP:WQA with the diff. The people who watch the board realize this, I think. I'm not sure why someone with a userpage that looks like this is shocked when his good faith is questioned... but then, by complaining that no one will assume good faith, he's merely going down the checklist of characteristics of tendentious editors. It's almost eerie how accurate that list is. MastCell 22:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Great link to the tendentious editor page. Never knew it existed. I love checklists. For example, the pseudoscience one is quite useful at times. OK, I was trying to do this the easy way. Instead, you're going to take blame for my untimely death. OrangeMarlin 22:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

You should try blood electrification. Or maybe the blood type diet. Apparently it's good for what-ails-ya. MastCell 22:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK, why aren't those things deleted? OrangeMarlin 22:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Damn, Mastcell, that's just... harsh. Why are you torturing the funny colored fish? He's already dealing with the textbook TE, you have to rub salt in the wound? shaking head sadly KillerChihuahua 22:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I was merely suggesting that he consider some of the Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, or perhaps visit mercola.com (just look for the external links in any medically related Misplaced Pages article!) And if you think those links shouldn't be spammed all over Misplaced Pages, well, maybe I'll see you at the bank when we cash our checks from Pfizer. Man, it has been a long week. MastCell 23:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh... my... Comfies, dear. Is that an appeal for assistance? KillerChihuahua 23:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

No, not really... just venting a bit. But thank you for the concern. MastCell 19:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to have to RfC MastCell. He's just plain evil. I'll bet he's behind Living dinosaurs. OrangeMarlin 01:32, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

expired PROD

Hi there, I see you served up deletion on Richard Morley (Oregon politician), after its PROD expired. I believe there was some good, sourced info in there, that might be appropriate to merge into a related article. Are you able to pull up the last version and send it to me? Thanks! -Pete 07:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the last version and moved it into your userspace. I'll leave a note on your talk page as well. MastCell 16:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much! -Pete 18:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Carl Lindgren Prod

I was just looking at the cached Google page, and it seems at first glance that he meets the notability guidelines: what were the grounds for the PROD? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan 20:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

At second glance, it looks a bit more dubious, so I'm not contesting the Prod -- just verifying it.--SarekOfVulcan 20:51, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The grounds were basically that it was a vanispamcruftisement, though the PROD rationale was phrased in a somewhat derogatory fashion and so I chose not to enshrine it in the deletion summary. MastCell 20:53, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Nah, I just tried to confirm the Ole Miss Alumni Review profile, and searching for his last name alone brought up nothing.--SarekOfVulcan 21:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Got a couple minutes?

I was asked if I might be interested in adminship (User_talk:Ronz#RFA.3F) and thought I'd get your opinion. Not that I'm going to try in the foreseeable future, but perhaps I should give it some thought. I know I do a lot of admin-like work, but I also seem to find myself in heated conflicts. It seems like you had to make significant changes to what and how you contributed to Misplaced Pages when you became an admin... --Ronz 23:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course this question isn't to me but I would like to respond, I hope that it's ok. I think you would make a wonderful administrator and would recommend you myself. --CrohnieGal 10:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

First off, after looking at Ronz's talk page, I took a look at Richard H. Brodhead - what a WP:BLP disaster zone. But that's beside the point. I find the admin tools useful, and I'm a pretty heavy user of them (see my logs), but I did find that I began focusing more on administrative stuff (mostly of a janitorial or dispute-resolution nature) at the expense of encyclopedic contributions. When I was a non-admin, I wrote (or at least contributed heavily to) 2 featured articles and quite a few other medical topics. Now, I find that many of my contribs are cleanup, dealing with egregious POV pushing or sockpuppetry, trying to sort disputes, etc. So it's one of those things - but it's certainly had an effect on my editing patterns.

From time to time I've considered either temporarily resigning the admin bit or just not using the tools for a month or so... the burnout factor from dealing with the sort of BS that you encounter can be pretty high. But that's not to discourage you.

I would say that editors who've been involved in serious controversies have a tough time at RfA. Regardless of the details of the controversy or the appropriateness of their actions, excellent candidates are often sunk by editors with a grudge whom the candidate has pissed off in the past. It will always be easier for a low-profile inoffensive candidate to get through RfA than it will be for someone who's taken part in controversies and has experience in the trenches. Which is back-asswards, but those are the facts of life. So I wouldn't discourage you - I think you'd do a good job, and User:Shalom is a very good judge of editor quality - but I would certainly give some thought to how you would describe conflicts you've been in, and how those would play out. But to answer the question you actually asked, yes, I've found adminship has changed my editing habits. I'm fine with it, but I definitely spend my time doing different things now than before I became an admin. Good luck with whatever you choose to do. MastCell 18:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly the info I was hoping you'd share. Thanks for the help at Richard H. Brodhead too! --Ronz 04:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection of Ayatullah Muhammad Hussain Najafi

You wrote: "2 incidences of vandalism in the past few days isn't quite enough to warrant semi-protection, but if it continues to escalate, drop me a line or come back here and we can semi-protect it." The vandalism has happened again, but this time by a new wiki-user Raza Shamsi. So I would try to negotiate the edited matter with him. In case of failure and continued edit-war, I would request you to do something about it. Take care, Syed Fayyaz Abbas 18:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear on whether this is vandalism, or a content dispute. I think you're justified in removing unsourced claims or information, but beyond that I'd encourage, as you said, trying to work it out on the article talk page. If you can't then we can see about protection or some other mechanism to get people talking. MastCell 18:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

Hey MastCell. New editor Angela Kennedy (talk · contribs) is not best pleased with having been called a "sockpuppet" on Misplaced Pages:Neutrality Project. The temporal relationship with Alpinist (who I will rehabilitate tonight) is striking but this is clearly a different editor. Do you think you could manage an apology of sorts? Thanks. JFW | T@lk 19:26, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You may have noticed the exchange on my talkpage. I have agreed to rehabilitate Alpinist, and I'm acting on the presumption that you will agree with this. All this is with the understanding that if he becomes abusive or difficult, the block can be reinstated without further discussion. Are you with me on this? JFW | T@lk 22:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine with me. I don't really intend to get more involved, mostly because I know little about Simon Wesseley (other than that his page has been targeted in the past for some pretty serious WP:BLP violations) and the climate and tenor of discussion on the article are not particularly enticing. I will leave a note for Angela Kennedy; while I regret upsetting her with the sockpuppet charge, I think there are significant issues with a user with an outside agenda coming here specifically to carry out that agenda, particularly when it takes the form of piling on in favor of a recently blocked user. MastCell 22:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Support for smoking restrictions?

Hi MastCell. I recall recently reading somewhere about public support for (or against) smoking bans--something like X amount of Americans support restrictions on smoking in public places. I don't remember where I read it, though I suspect it was related to the ETS RfM. Do you know what reference I'm talking about? Can you point me in the right direction? If you don't have this right at your fingertips don't worry about it. Yilloslime (t) 20:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a bunch of surveys of varying quality and relevance out there. I'd probably cite the Surgeon General's 2006 report (which summarizes a number of public-opinion gauges), specifically I think it's in Chapter 10 on page 588 and thereafter. MastCell 22:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You are a prince. Thanks.Yilloslime (t) 22:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks also - I've been looking for this side of the data, as I only have the surveys that support the other side of the argument. Naacats 05:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there a policy about off-wiki calls for on-wiki POV pushing? Yilloslime (t) 17:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone else think those articles will be fully protected in a few days? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Soliciting meatpuppets is pretty strongly frowned upon, as you might imagine. I think this is probably the best avenue to take at this point; I think a ban from smoking-related topics is warranted. MastCell 17:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

WPAG-TV deletion

WPAG-TV article text was taken from an another article on the Misplaced Pages which is under a GNL and is its permissible. The CorenSearchBot is flaging the article on a Misplaced Pages mirror. If the Misplaced Pages is not under a GNL license then there would be no mirror. (If i copy this else to User talk:Coren will it flag me again? Spshu 21:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

My bad... I'll restore the WPAG-TV article. You can just remove the CorenBot tag if that's the case. MastCell 21:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

DRV

Per this thread, your comments would be welcome at this DRV. -- Jreferee T/C 23:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Unblock memestream please?

You wrote at user:memestream five days ago: "Feel free to unblock, or I will in the AM." MastCell Talk 03:29, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Everyone now agrees that no mis-use of the two accounts occured. The only objector has now lifted his objection, following my specific approach to him. When asked why I wish to use two accounts I gave very good reasons explaining how these were specifically permitted by the rules. Now all has gone quiet, and memestream is still blocked, though 'not guilty as charged'. Would you please help me now by unblocking as you said you would. Thanks, --Lindosland 11:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The account has been unblocked. MastCell 15:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this decision. You should see the BS theories of Evolution being bandied about by his sock, Lindosland. This is a tendentious editor that should move to creation wiki or some such place. OrangeMarlin 18:31, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it may better be dealt with by compiling evidence of any misbehavior and bringing it up via WP:RfC or at WP:CSN. There was enough disagreement (though gently voiced) with the block that I felt it probably ought to be overturned for now. I will continue to keep an eye on User:Memestream, though, and I would have little tolerance for further WP:SOCK issues. But for now, I would suggest just keeping an eye on him, and ignoring or even removing posts of his that violate the talk page guidelines. MastCell 18:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, and you know I trust you despite putting Duesberg hypothesis on my user talk page. OrangeMarlin 19:39, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Mariam83 banned user returned

I thought I would start with you as an Admin as you were involved in the earlier round with http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Mariam83 vandalism and edit warring. Afraid she is back with her edit warring on the same pages (Maghreb, Maghreb Arab Union, Berbers, Tunisia, Arab World, etc). Protection on these pages needed.(collounsbury 17:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC))

I've semi-protected Maghreb, Maghreb Arab Union, Berbers, and Arab World. Didn't see enough on Tunisia to protect it. I've blocked some of the more obvious socks. Are there any other target articles you want me to look at regarding semi-protection? MastCell 17:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe North Africa also (I'm not sure if it is already or not), if you look at the history DrMaik and I had to revert a good number of edits that were absolute precise redos of Mariam83's vandalism (also it appears LGarrel is a sock of hers). Thanks mate, sorry for this (collounsbury 22:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC))

I blocked LGarrel as a sock - not enough recent edits to Tunisia to justify semi-protection, for now, though. MastCell 22:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

User:192.249.47.11

Hi MastCell,

I don't think you've been involved with any editting of Rachel Carson lately or possibly even ever, so I hopefully there's no COI in me asking you to consider talking action against 192.249.47.11 (talk · contribs · logs). For the third time in as many days, this user has inserted unsourced and factually inaccurate POV into the article. This IP has made some good contributions in other areas, but none the less, his talk page is filled with warnings. I think a block is in order. Can you help me out? Yilloslime (t) 19:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be a shared IP used by various people. The present user is certainly on an anti-Rachel-Carson kick, repeatedly inserting unsourced non-neutral material. I'm going to block the IP for a short time, which should straighten things out. MastCell 19:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Yilloslime (t) 19:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Race and ancient Egypt

MastCell, I was about to edit the Race and ancient Egypt as you were protecting the article. I really don't think protection is a good idea at this point, since the article's month-long protection has just expired, and it was also protected just before that for close to a month. Much progress has been made in the last couple of days, and consensus was reached on many areas. Please, reconsider -- at this point, I really don't feel that the article would benefit from being protected every three or four days. Thanks, — Zerida 19:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

There appeared to be an edit war in progress. I'm willing to consider unprotecting it, but I don't see how an edit war is going to be productive, and would again rather see more discussion on the talk page, possibly including a content WP:RfC if there are unresolved disputes. MastCell 19:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

There was indeed clear edit warring occurring and there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus on anything. I'm there now and we will hack out a real consensus. Wikidudeman 19:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus on anything In fact, Taharqa and I reached consensus on quite a few areas as you can see from our discussions on the article's talk page, as well as his. The edit war seems to have happened within the last few hours. What should have been done was to seek consensus on the talk page for any other changes made by new editors. Making major changes to the article then quickly asking for re-protection after two long protection periods had expired was not helpful in my opinion. — Zerida 19:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Two editors does not a consensus make. Moreover, Consensus can change. Fast. Wikidudeman 19:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree Mastcell.. Even though it appears that Wikidudeman indeed initiated the edit warring, as me and Zerida clearly worked out a compromise until he insisted on these rash revisions pending discussion, I believe a protection of the article for the time period specified is reasonable. It should encourage people to engage in dialogue.. Thank you..Taharqa 19:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree... do your best to work it out on the talk page for next couple of days - after all, there is no deadline. If, after that time, Wikidudeman hasn't been able to reach a consensus with you, then his edits won't stick, but you may as well use the time to see if you can work something out. MastCell 21:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I do believe that protecting the article is not very helpful. The reason is when the article is protected, editors go in to hybernation, and resurface when the article is unprotected, so disputes are not getting resolved with protection. Especially since this article was protected for one month. During that time there was little activity on the talk page. I suggest we give the 3rr rule some time. If the article is unprotected we can get input from all sides and reach a consensus. Now that all the editors have expressed their views, it is a good opportunity to try to make a stable, fair and balanced article. Muntuwandi 01:04, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Simon Wessely

WTF have I got into here? — iridescent (talk to me!) 00:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)